Italian tiles have become increasingly popular in the United States in recent years for use in covering interior floors as well as outdoor patio areas. These tiles tend to be uniform in shape and dimension, much like the quarry tiles which are used commercially. The non-uniformity of a Mexican tile is a desirable feature aesthetically, as it gives the finished floor or patio surface a rough, textured hand-made appearance that harmonizes with rough-hewn wood and other features of certain types of architecture. It is common practice to install an irregularly shaped tile by eye with only the use of a tape measure to maintain a straight line configuration.
Unfortunately, however, the uniformity of the Italian tiles introduces problems associated with the placing or laying of the tiles. It is critical that tile placement be as uniform as the tile will permit. It is not easy to keep the tiles linearly aligned and uniformly spaced, and unless a reasonable degree of success is achieved along these lines, the installation will not have a professional appearance.
As an aid in assuring the proper alignment and spacing while laying such tiles, many professional tile layers utilize special frames or racks that serve as guides for the positioning or placement of the tiles. The rack comprises a framework or grid formed by perpendicularly intersecting rows and columns of partitioning walls. In the use of such a rack the person laying the tiles positions the rack on the floor surface after the surface has been covered with an adhesive. The tiles are then placed in the individual compartments of the rack. Finally, the rack is removed and the spaces between the tiles are filled with grout. If the tiles are centered within the individual compartments as they are placed, the desired alignment and spacing will be achieved without great difficulty.
Conventional racks of this type are not ideally suited to the intended purpose because they rest directly on the adhesive and require constant cleaning. In addition, they are typically made of metal strips that are welded together. This construction is heavy, bulky, difficult to handle and relatively expensive to manufacture. A further limitation of such presently available racks is that they are not adjustable to permit accommodation of different sizes of tiles.
Clearly, there is a need for an improved rack of this general type in which such undesirable features are eliminated.